Many companies and institutions offer their customers toll-free telephone access to various services. For example, some manufacturers of computer software provide their customers with no-charge telephone support via a toll-free telephone number (i.e., an 800 number) provided by an inter-exchange carrier such as AT&T. In many instances, the demand for such no-charge telephone service has placed an enormous financial burden on the companies and institutions providing the service. A growing number of institutions and companies that previously provided service at no charge via a toll-free telephone number are now imposing a charge for such service.
One past approach for rendering a service by telephone on a fee basis has been to impose a fee upon the completion of the customer-initiated call to the provider of the service who has been assigned a 900 number for this purpose. A customer (i.e., a telephone subscriber) who places a telephone call to a 900 number incurs a charge based on the number of minutes of service the subscriber receives. This approach affords little flexibility in terms of providing a certain amount of service at no charge before imposing a fee for additional service. Often, a manufacturer of software, for example, may wish to provide the purchaser with several hours of telephone support without charge.
Presently, most companies and institutions that offer a limited amount of no-charge telephone service do so by providing their customers with some type of qualifier, in the form of a password or Personal Identification Number (PIN), that expires or otherwise becomes invalid after the customer has obtained a prescribed amount of service. To obtain a password or PIN, the customer must usually register with the company or institution offering the service, usually by mail or sometimes, by phone. If the registration occurs by phone, invariably, the customer, once registered must dial a separate number to actually obtain the service.
Once the customer has expended the allocated amount of the service, the customer must call the provider of the service, usually at telephone number different from the one associated with the service itself and sometimes different from the number associated with product registration. Only by calling the number associated with renewal of the service can the customer arrange for payment to obtain additional service. Once the customer has arranged for payment, then he or she would access the service provider in the same manner as before by dialing the number associated with the service itself. The need to dial separate numbers to: (1) obtain a password or PIN, (2) obtain the service itself, and (3) arrange for payment for renewal of the service, is certainly cumbersome.
Thus, there is a need for an improved method for controlling subscriber access to a fee-based service that is not subject to the disadvantage of the prior art.